The documents were lengthy but pretty vague and insubstantial, and really didn’t present any threat in themselves. None of the post Vatican II liturgical abuses, ranging from getting rid of the communion rail to communion in the hand to the complete replacement of the old Mass, were contained in any documents. They were mostly actions by a contingent of radical clergy at the Vatican, on the one hand, or wild practical abuses, many of them starting in the US, that spread among the laity and clergy and were tacitly accepted because of the breakdown in authority after Vatican II.
Did the documents contain bad stuff? I attended many study sessions on them in the 1960s, like most Catholics my age, and they really didn’t contain much of anything at all. However, their very vagueness and lack of precision left the door open, and a lot of people had obviously been plotting for a long time on how to take advantage of this.
Bingo! It was, as a result of their vagueness, that certain bihops and priests were able to introduce 'novelties' into the liturgy. This was not unique to the US but, as we have already seen, worldwide.
To cite an example, when I wrote the local diocese about my (then) pastor attempting to introduce liturgical dance into the liturgy, the Director for Divine Worship responded in favor of the pastor and quoted from a VCII document on 'multicularism'. After choking with laughter, I wrote her back citing Sacrosanctum Concilium and Canon law which states that catholics have a right to a valid liturgy. I won; they lost.
The victims of these shenanigans were pew catholics who never bothered to actually read the documents. They simply went along on the assumption the bishop would not delude them. For many years, I was one of them. Then I discovered this forum :-)
Excellent Post!
I wish more people took the time to read some of Vatican II instead of finding fault with it.
Some of it rings true today almost as a sort of prophecy.
Like this...
From GAUDIUM ET SPES
Excerpt: 65. Economic development must remain under man's determination and must not be left to the judgment of a few men or groups possessing too much economic power or of the political community alone or of certain more powerful nations. It is necessary, on the contrary, that at every level the largest possible number of people and, when it is a question of international relations, all nations have an active share in directing that development. There is need as well of the coordination and fitting and harmonious combination of the spontaneous efforts of individuals and of free groups with the undertakings oœ public authorities.
Growth is not to be left solely to a kind of mechanical course of the economic activity of individuals, nor to the authority of government. For this reason, doctrines which obstruct the necessary reforms under the guise of a false liberty, and those which subordinate the basic rights of individual persons and groups to the collective organization of production must be shown to be erroneous.(4)